Supplemental Lighting for an MVB

[bjosephs]

Hello, All


I have a young Bearded Dragon that has been with me for 2 months. He is about 12" long now and and was half that when I bought him. He's outgrowing his 20 gal long tank fast and I'm in the home stretch on completing a 4X2X2 vivarium for him to move into. Currently I use a 24" Reptisun 10.0 for UVB and an incandescent+Halogen for a basking spot over his favorite branch. I think I want to set him up with an MVB in the new house, a Megaray 100, and I want to know what MVB users were doing for supplemental lighting to complement the MVB Basking spot. I know I should set up a secondary basking spot with no UVB and I'll be using a halogen bulb for that. I was thinking about using 1 or 2 three foot fluorescent tubes to give good background light but I'm not sure about...

Should I use High Output or standard?
Would I need 1 or 2 bulbs for bright backing light?
5000k or 6500k? The former is endorsed by Reptile UV to a degree but the latter seems easier to come by.
It was suggested to me to put a UVB tube in one of the 2 fluorescent spots to give additional UVB... has anyone else done this?

Just looking for suggestions or any feedback on MVB based setups.


Regards,
Brian

 

[luissandoval87]

I know most people on this forum don't agree with the using MVB. I think they have one very large thread on the dangers of MVBs. I have a friend who used one for all his bearded dragons without a problem though. I actually used one with my first beardie and about two months into it, he developed an eye infection. I took care of it pretty quick with the help of some of the guys here at the forum and a couple of vet visits, but I wouldn't use a MVB again. :/

 

[LLLReptile]

MVBs are awesome for raising beardies - my experience with using them personally for my animals at home, and with using dozens of them in the store, as well as the hundreds of customers who use them and shop here at the store...they work well! They do need to be oriented straight up and down, and you do want to keep at least 6" (I think farther for the MegaRays, 12"?) between the top of your beardie's head and the bulb.

When using an MVB, you don't really want to add additional UVB lights, so that your dragon can move away from the UVB/light if it wants to. If anything, use regular household lightbulbs to brighten the cage up, but you don't need to add more UVB.

-Jen

 

[luissandoval87]

If you go to to Board Index>Bearded Dragon Discussions>Health, you'll see all the locked threads from people with concerns and horror stories using MVBs. I guess some bearded dragons are more delicate to them than others because some will develop the infections while others are completely fine. I mean you're already using arguably the best UVB lamp out there...